I've heard a lot about geocaching through the grapevine. I've been told its so fun and growing so much that we need to feature it on our KARE 11 News EXTRA. We want to do just that, especially heading into the 5 year celebration. We'd like to connect and learn more from some of your most colorful, seasoned, and passionate cachers. As you know, things in TV news are never easy. Here's the rub: We have two days to shoot our story and those dates are fast approaching. The dates are Wednesday July 18th and Thursday July 19th. We can shoot morning, noon, or night. Maybe there are a couple of really great locations we can hunt down with some of you. I hope we can connect, we hope to shed some light on this growing sport (part of our focus is getting people out, to enjoy the outdoors!)

What I would like here is a "colorful, seasoned, and passionate" metro cacher to take the lead and work with the reporter to present geocaching. Certainly one could consider WeekNIGHT caching as part of that presentation. Showing a couple of high-quality caches would also be ideal (COTM nominees or winners would be a good idea to start).

Please email or PM me directly and I'll get you in contact with the reporter if you're interested._________________Hmm...

1) Have the report done in an community that is already VERY geocaching friendly. An unaware community might be caught off guard and do the "knee-jerk".

2) A very interesting yet UNRECOGNIZABLE cache location. Muggles would come out of the woodwork trying to find these if they thought they recognized the spot. It would be the death warrant for many._________________"There is a pleasure in the pathless woods..." - Lord Byron

Take them to caches in one of the County Park systems that has an easy, on-line viewed Geocaching policy. Ramsey County and 3 Rivers with their registration process and Washington County with their "as long as it's approved by GC.com, it's OK with us" policy. Then a mention that Anoka County has yet to put a policy in place. That might speed things up with Anoka County. Most caches in these park systems require some hiking to get to and usually are very 'family friendly'. After all, it sounds like the getting outdoors aspect is an angle they are interested in.

And be sure to emphasize CITO. Parks love this part of geocaching.

Sure, there are great caches in Roseville and Posen surely fits the bill as a passionate and colorful cacher, but these three counties have established policies that can be quoted by KARE 11 without raising anyone's eyebrows in cities without formal written policies.

Great point on the "If it's okay with GC, it's okay with us" parks! It shows a good precedent for other communities to follow._________________"There is a pleasure in the pathless woods..." - Lord Byron

1) Have the report done in an community that is already VERY geocaching friendly. An unaware community might be caught off guard and do the "knee-jerk".

2) A very interesting yet UNRECOGNIZABLE cache location. Muggles would come out of the woodwork trying to find these if they thought they recognized the spot. It would be the death warrant for many.

Yes yes.

I've dealt with #2 for newspaper articles in the past and Esko has dealt with it for TV.

One thing I would suggest is contacting the cacher owner in advance to give them an idea what you're going to do. It gives them a chance to voice their opinion if they aren't in favor of it (or if you're like Esko then just take them to one of your own caches).

Someone suggested to me today that we focus on the family aspects of caching as well - something that I strongly suggest._________________Hmm...

Take them to caches in one of the County Park systems that has an easy, on-line viewed Geocaching policy. Ramsey County and 3 Rivers with their registration process and Washington County with their "as long as it's approved by GC.com, it's OK with us" policy. Then a mention that Anoka County has yet to put a policy in place. That might speed things up with Anoka County. Most caches in these park systems require some hiking to get to and usually are very 'family friendly'. After all, it sounds like the getting outdoors aspect is an angle they are interested in.

And be sure to emphasize CITO. Parks love this part of geocaching.

Sure, there are great caches in Roseville and Posen surely fits the bill as a passionate and colorful cacher, but these three counties have established policies that can be quoted by KARE 11 without raising anyone's eyebrows in cities without formal written policies.

I agree lets support those who support us.
Also let them know that we spend money in their community ie WeekNight Caching and Breakfast Buddies.